Automotive vehicles can comprise more than one drive assist system in order to increase the driving comfort/convenience and/or safety.
By way of example, speed limiter systems limit the highest speed of a vehicle to a upper limit, also known as a set-speed. In the case of motor vehicles having an internal combustion engine, it is possible for example to realize this in that the speed limiter system changes the supply of fuel to the engine in that the flow rate of the fuel via the injection pump is adjusted.
The speed limiter system aids the driver of the vehicle to not exceed a set speed even if the gas pedal position would, in the absence of the speed limiter system, cause a motor power that would have led to a higher speed than the set speed.
Autonomous braking driver assist systems or auto-braking systems or pre-collision assist systems operate to identify, via an associated sensor or sensors supplying data to the system, impending accident situations, by way of example potential vehicle collisions for example in that the distance with respect to the vehicle ahead is monitored and said systems ensure that the driver is warned by way of example in a visual or acoustic manner and/or for example if a suitable reaction of the driver, by way of example an actuation of the vehicle brake, is not performed or is not performed to a sufficient extent or is performed too slowly, a brake intervention, in other words an autonomous or auto-braking procedure of the vehicle, is performed automatically by the auto-braking system, by way of example with full braking force.
In the case of most proposed driver assist systems, the driver is able to, by some form of control input, cancel or override the corresponding drive assist function when desired.
DE 100 35 035 discloses that a maximum speed limit that can be set via a manual switch can be overridden, in other words deactivated, when a threshold value is exceeded when the gas pedal is being actuated.
DE 10 2015 122 603 discloses a vehicle that comprises multiple drive assist functions inter alia a collision avoiding system, a lane-keeping assistant and an automatic distance maintaining system. If an abnormal driving situation is identified, the drive assist functions are automatically activated even if the systems have been deactivated by the driver by means of associated switches. Nevertheless, there are possibilities for the driver to override the drive assist systems. The extent to which the gas pedal, in other words the accelerator pedal, is pressed down thus identifies whether the automatic distance maintaining system is to be disabled.
It is therefore known in the prior art that when a speed limiter system is activated it can be deactivated or overridden by the driver actuating the throttle (gas pedal, for instance) beyond or above an established/predetermined speed limiter override threshold value.
It is also known in the prior art that an auto-braking intervention by an autonomous auto-braking system can be disabled or overridden by the driver if, in the driver's judgment, an auto-braking intervention is not the desired reaction in the respective traffic situation. By way of example, overriding the steering, in other words by means of moving the steering wheel, and/or overriding the moving the gas pedal beyond or above an auto-braking override threshold value can be provided as possibilities for overriding the auto-braking procedure.
Previously, no consideration has been made as to how the two systems (SLS and EAB) may interact when both are activated. More specifically, no consideration has been given to the fact that if each of the two systems has an override power control setting, those two override settings may require coordination in order to derive optimum benefit from the system.